KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — Human rights lawyer Edmund Bon told the police today that their sedition investigation against him is based on false reports lodged by individuals who either deliberately misinterpreted his recent remarks on a fatwa or carelessly did so.
Bon, in his witness statement recorded under Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code, urged the police to investigate his five accusers instead, saying they had likely complained against him for the purpose of creating feelings of animosity towards those with differing opinions.
He added that his allegedly offensive remarks, which were published by online news portal The Malaysian Insider on January 20 this year, were based on his professional legal opinion on a Federal Court decision.
“I would like to stress that the five individuals who lodged the police reports had, whether deliberately or carelessly, misinterpreted my words in the article.
“It is clear and obvious that in the article, I had only offered the view that fatwas cannot be applied on non-Muslims,” he said in his statement, which was uploaded on socio-political blog site Loyar Burok.
“I would also like to stress that in the said article, I never said that fatwas are not applicable to all citizens or those professing Islam,” he added.
According to the post on Loyar Burok, Bon gave his statement to one Asst Supt Zaidi A. Rahman at the Kepala Batas police station at 11.30am this morning. He was accompanied by lawyers Amer Hamzah Arshad and New Sin Yew, as well as pupil-in-chambers, Lee Shee Pin.
Bon was summoned for a statement last Friday after he was accused of committing sedition in his remarks on The Malaysian Insider article.
In the January 20 article, Bon was quoted as remarking on Kedah Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzan Shah who had said that only Muslims have the right to call God “Allah”.
The state ruler, who is also the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, had reminded all parties in January that the National Fatwa Council had already ruled in 1986 that several words, including the Arabic word “Allah”, can only be used exclusively by Muslims, while non-Muslims are banned from uttering them.
The Malaysian Insider quoted Bon as saying that the decree cannot be applied to non-Muslims as it violates their religious rights.
Bon is the third lawyer in recent times to be hauled up under the Sedition Act 1948, a colonial era law that has been used against opposition lawmakers, students, an academic, a journalist and even a preacher.
PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s lawyer, N. Surendran, was charged last month with sedition for criticising the Court of Appeal’s ruling that found his client guilty of sodomy.
The late veteran lawyer Karpal Singh was convicted of sedition last February over his remarks on the Perak Sultan’s role in the 2009 state constitutional crisis.
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